The present context of institutional transmission: to train a public of amateur musicians

2“‘Chum chananan,’ my toering chimes” [‘Chum chananan’ bichuvâ], sing along the students in this morning of March. Sited cross-legged and facing the teacher, in one of the classroom of Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra, an artistic institution located in the heart of New Delhi, they repeat on a loop the lyrics of the khayâl song: “I know my beloved has arrived. Since few days my beloved has arrived, all the pain of my heart has flown away!”

3Khayâl is presently the main genre of Hindustani vocal music. The lyrics are generally in Braj Bhâshâ, a western dialect of Hindi as well as an important literary language of Northern India at the medieval period. Khayâl songs have a large range of topics, from romantic songs to devotional or philosophical ones. Some Khayâls describe the nature and the seasons or the power of music. Some address the unique and sacred link between the artist and his guru or the relationship between the artist and his patron. Gods of Hindu pantheon are at the heart of many hymns of praises: Shiva, the Goddess but mostly Krishna. The celebration of Sufi Saints and masters are also very common. The variety of poetic themes incorporated in Khayâl songs echo the diversity of the South Asian religious and literary heritage. This vocal genre seems to have appeared at the end of the sixteenth century, in the context of the Indo-Persian culture of the Mughal Empire. This view differs from the oral history who attributes the creation of this elaborated singing form to the medieval Saint and poet Amir Khusrau (1253–1325). After having memorized it, the students note down the composition using the notation system of “Bhatkhande,” a key figure of Indian modern musicology. Several recordings have participated in the transmission of this “traditional” song, like the rendition of Dipali Nag (1922–2009) recorded in 1971 by the famous label “His Master’s Voice.”

Advertisement for a concert of the singer Gauhar Jan, The Bombay Chronicle, 3 May 1915.

4Even if it didn’t manage to replace the master-disciple system of oral transmission—which remains the main path towards a music career, the institutional teaching has become an important educative context for “North Indian classical music,” as Hindustani music is now usually called, mostly if we consider the great number of amateur musicians concerned. This training is part of a “good education,” the musical knowledge fitting in a general knowledge underlining the affiliation to a privileged milieu. While this transmission mode takes its origin in the idea of spreading the knowledge of Hindustani music beyond the limited circle who used to listen and patronize it, this pedagogical context is nowadays denigrated for its inefficiency to produce artists of high standard.

An art music associated with the aristocratic culture (before 1950)

5“‘Chum chananan,’ my toering chimes,” the melody resonates in the improvised studio, interposed by vigorous tân, these fast melodic parts: in this month of November 1902, in Calcutta, then capital of the British Empire, a woman of barely 30 years old, “elaborately dressed and [wearing] a whole mine of jewels,” sings with an incredible ease during the few minutes that are given to her (Gaisberg, 2010 [1903], p. 19). This marks one of the first recordings of “Indian classical music” undertaken in the Indian subcontinent. The initiative comes to Fred Gaisberg, sound engineer for what will become in 1908 the Gramophone Company. As for “Miss Gauhar Jan” (18731930), renowned courtesan, she makes one of her first commercial recordings of a long serie, which brough her wealth and fame oll over the country. Her version differs from the one presently heard, the beloved being identified here as Lord Krishna. Initiated into vocal art by her mother, a professional dancer and singer known as Badi Malka Jan, before receiving the guidance of prestigious masters, the singer performs in front of many Indian sovereigns. In December 1911, she is invited to sing at the court of Delhi for the coronation of King Georg V. The exceptional career of Gauhar Jan is not presaging, then, of the imminent disappearance of the women singers and dancers from the public stage. Hindustani music is, at that time, nurtured by the nobility, in the context of royal and princely courts as well as in the salons of the rich merchants and landlords, but also in the courtesans’ salons. This art music dedicated to the entertainment of its audience is a professional specialisation: communities of musicians and dancers transmit their art into their lineage. Since the 17thc. at least, a great amount of the performers of this oral tradition are Muslims.

Republication of the anthology, example of the third volume with the portrait of the musicologist V.N. Bhakhtande and his notation of the song “‘Chum chananan’…”.

A “national” and “classical” music (since the starting of the twentieth century)

6These two scenes, distant from more than one century, are connected by a single song for which other traces appear. “‘Chum chananan,’ my toering chimes “is part of the famous anthology Hindustânī Saṅgīt Paddhati. Kramik Pustak Mâlikâ (19201937) [Hindustani music textbook. Book of gradual level], written by Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande (18601936), the North indian musicologist the most important of the twentieth century. This anthology is a major textbook among the amateur artists, just as it is in all the music schools and academic departments of North India. The song-text, similar at the version initially introduced, is presented with a notation created by the author, a Maharashtrian Brahmin. In a time where Hindustani music is built, by a part of the intelligentsia, as a “national” and “classical” music, this scholar has crossed the sub-continent to collect manuscripts, as well as songs belonging to the repertoires of some of the greatest ustads, the Muslim master musicians. A musical reform movement has taken place in the 1860s, along a process of institutionalization, and is intensifying in the first decades of the twentieth century. The debates around Hindustani music are happening in a politicized space. The technological innovations, with the use of the phonograph and the commercialization of the first music recordings, participed in this dynamic of modernization. Supported by several Indian rulers (Rajas and Nawabs), Bhatkhande has organized four pan-Indian conferences between 1916 and 1925. These meetings brought together court musicians from different areas, patrons and musicologists to discuss the main lines of the project of the music revival at the national level. The entry of courtesans, who was few time back the icon of an artistic and literary refinement for the local elite, is, on the other hand, forbidden, underlining a drastic change in the perception of the hereditary communities of professional artists.

Conclusion

7To approach the history of Hindustani music through its transmission helps to comprehend the transformations of this Indian traditional knowledge since the end of the nineteenth century. In the space of three generations, we notice a change of the communities invested in the production of musical knowledge and a relocation of this artistic form. The evolution of performers’ identity causes a transition of classes—the people from middle classes are succeeding castes of specialists—and of religious background, Hindu musicians replacing progressively Muslims ones. At last, a full generation of courtesans has been replaced by high caste women. This gradual transformation of the organization of musicians with the repositioning of the different groups engaged in the Hindustani music world is one of the direct consequences of the music reform, movement that has persisted in the post-independent period. Therefore, Hindustani music milieu appears today as a heterogeneous social space where the actors distinguish generally “non-hereditary musicians” from “hereditary musicians” (khândânī in Urdu, from the Arabo-Persian word “khândân” meaning lineage or descendant), in virtue of their nonbelonging to a family of musicians whose traditional occupation is music.